Read me file

This file provides information on the materials to replicate the data analysis in the following publication:

Rennwald, Line and Jonas Pontusson. Paper Stones Revisited: Class Voting, Unionization, and the Electoral Decline of the Mainstream Left. Perspectives on Politics.

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The analyses rely on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), modules 2-4.
For further information about CSES data, see http://www.cses.org/

Stata 15 was used for the analyses presented in the article.

Before analysing the data, you will need to prepare the data as indicated below in the first step. 
It consists of recoding the variables and merging the different CSES modules. 


First step: Data preparation 
Download the three data sets cses2orig.dta, cses3orig.dta, cses4orig.dta
Download the four Do-files 01_Data_preparation.do, 01a_Recoding_cses2.do, 01b_Recoding_cses3.do, 01c_Recoding_cses4.do
Run the Do-file 01_Data_preparation.do
This will lead to the creation of two data sets: cses2to4_40cases.dta, cses2to4_38cases.dta 


Second step: Data analysis
Download the four Do-files 02_Analyses_Abandon_38.do, 03_Analyses_Abandon_40.do, 02a3a_Recoding_Abandon.do, 04_Analyses_Newvoting.do

The main analyses in Section 4 are based on 38 country-elections. You will use the data set cses2to4_38cases.dta
Run the Do-file 02_Analyses_Abandon_38.do

Other analyses in Section 4 are based on 40 country-elections. You will use the data set cses2to4_40cases.dta
Run the Do-file 03_Analyses_Abandon_40.do

The analyses in Section 5 are based on 40 country-elections. You will use the data set cses2to4_40cases.dta
Run the Do-file 04_Analyses_Newvoting.do